South Longford by-election
By Aengus O Snodaigh
The death of the Irish Parliamentary Party MP for North Roscommon James J.
O'Kelly - a former IRB member who supported John Redmond - in late 1916 led
to one of the most important by-elections in Irish history. Under the
campaign slogan ``Put him in to get him out'', Joseph MacGuinness, a Longford
IRB man imprisoned in Lewes Jail in England was selected, against his
wishes, to contest the by-election in his home county.
South Longford was a strong Redmondite constituency and despite the earlier
set-back for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in North Roscommon, they
were far from on the run. While they initially had three candidates
nominated they eventually settled on Patrick MacKenna who was well regarded
amongst Sinn Féin supporters also. They used 20 of their MPs, all their
electoral experience and their arrogance in the election campaign to try to
hold onto the seat. They believed that all their enemies were enemies of
Ireland and that Sinn Féin were working hand-in-glove with the unionists
against the Irish Independence Party's grand design for Ireland. That plan
included discussions with the British premier Lloyd George on possible
partition of Ireland.
Their candidate, Patrick MacKenna said at one public meeting:
``Sinn Féin was a revolutionary organisation, and its avowed object was the
smashing of the constitutional movement of Parnell and Davitt, and the
creation of an Irish Republic. It was a self-destructive policy and was
advocated by men who were never known to do a day's work for Ireland.''
other leading stalwart of the party, Joseph Devlin, said that the issue
for the electorate was ``whether they were in favour of a self-governed
Ireland or a hopeless fight for an Irish Republic''. There could be no
half-way house.
The leader-in-waiting of the Irish Parliamentary Party John Dillon said,
while on the campaign trail: ``The issue is now clear, they were asked to
abandon the demand for Home Rule or any form of self-government involving a
continued connection with Great Britain and to substitute a demand for
sovereign independence and complete separation from the British Empire.''
McGuinness was the first real Sinn Féin candidate, or at least that whole
body of opinion which came together in the Mansion House in April. It is
said that McGuinness was selected by the Irish Republican Brotherhood
(IRB). A Longford man, he was also an IRB man. He was worried that
contesting election would compromise the traditional republican attitude of
contempt for ``parliamentary methods''. He is said to have been ``so
uncompromising in his separatist principles that the suggestion of standing
for election under the machinery of the British Administration was
repugnant to him''.
That he was chosen as candidate was conveyed to him through the prison
chaplain and he held a meeting with other POWs to discuss whether or not to
allow his name go forward. Eamonn Duggan, Piaras Béaslaí, Éamonn deValera,
Diarmuid Lynch and Seán McGarry felt he shouldn't contest, while Harry
Boland and Thomas Ashe were in favour of running. A message was set from
the prison stating: `` as regards the contesting of elections question, it
is so extremely dangerous from several points of view that most of us here
consider it very unwise''.
One of the reasons the POWs opposed it was that the felt a defeat of
McGuinness would be seen as a defeat of the men of 1916. Their advice was
ignored. The IRB understood that selecting candidates would enable them to
influence future policy towards republicanism and to negate the influence
of Arthur Griffith and his dual-monarchy programme.
Much of the election team involved in the Roscommon election campaign,
including Michael Collins, stayed and worked in the county for the
duration, Collins staying in the Greville Arms run by the Kiernans.
The poll on 9 May was held using an old incomplete register which
disenfranchised thousands of young men but, in a move which is believed to
have swayed away from the Redmondites three Catholic archbishops, 15
bishops, three Protestant bishops, the chairperson of county councils and
other public bodies issued a manifesto on the eve of the election which
came out against partition. It concluded thus:
``An appeal to the national conscience on the question of Ireland's
dismemberment should meet with one answer and one answer alone. To Irish
men of every creed and class and party the very thought of our country
partitioned and torn as a new Poland must be one of heart-rendering
sorrow.''
On the first count, MacKenna was declared elected, but as Piaras Beaslaí
put it, ``a bundle of uncounted votes was then discovered'' and McGuinness
won by 37 votes. Tim Pat Coogan, in his book on Michael Collins, quotes
Alasdair MacCába (later chairperson of the Irish Educational Building
Society) saying: ``I jumped up on the platform, put a .45 to the head of the
returning officer, clicked back the hammer and told him to think again.'' [I
think they call this electoral intervention.]
McGuinness only found out he was the victor after Harry Boland ``lifted'' a
copy of the Irish Independent from the chaplain's office and the POWs
grabbed him and carried him shoulder high around the prison yard. In a
letter afterwards he said: ``The fact that the children were on my side is,
I take it, the most hopeful sign of all.''
The pro-British Irish Times after the election went as far as stating that:
``After the bishops' manifesto, partition is as dead as a doornail and any
government which should try to resurrect it would show itself incredibly
ignorant or insanely contemptuous of the solitary conviction which now
unites all political parties in Ireland.''
What the Manchester Guardian described as the ``equivalent of a serious
British defeat in the field'' happened 82 years ago, when Joe McGuinness was
returned for the constituency of South Longford on 9 May 1917.
(More on the re-emergence of republicanism in 1917 next week)
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